How Stress is the (secret) Enemy of Resilience...and Excellent Leadership
Feb 22, 2024
Basically every person I talk to in the professional world nowadays tells me that they are stressed.
- Too much work with doubts of how to prioritize
- Disagreements with colleagues which grind on people's nerves
- Feeling unappreciated, left out, disrespected
- Having an immense pressure of performing and delivering results
- Being afraid of making mistakes or "being found out" - the infamous imposter syndrome
- Having a serious gap between how they show themselves to the outer world (strong, super confident, etc.) and their inner world where insecurities and fears kick in
- Finances or spending too little time with the important people in their lives
- ...the future
….and I'm bloody sure you could something to the list.
Being resilient is one of the most important skills for life generally, and absolutely crucial for effective leader
I dare saying -without it, people in leadership positions will burn out or break down sooner or later.
Quitting their job, becoming ill, being seriously unhappy and demotivated.
The NO1 factor for increasing resilience is to LOWER STRESS or at least the STRESS RESPONSE.
What is STRESS really?
Let me talk about what stress really is.
Stress shows up in our bodies as cortisol. A hormone that our bodies produce when "danger" is somewhere around us.
In the stone age that was a saber tooth tiger or maybe a hostile person from another tribe.
Well, we might still meet some hostile people in the professional world (definitely no saber tooth tigers….) but even those tend not to be a danger to our lives.
Still - our bodies react the same (unless we have developed a high level of resilience)
So it's crucial to decrease stressors in our life and dive into WHY this stresses us out.
And interestingly enough - as soon as we have a better idea about that - the feeling of stress decreases immediately and the feeling of being in control increases.
Yes, there is also the little thing of knowing how to calm our nervous system - this can be learned though. And it's NOT just talking or using logic, it's actively using our body to calm down our system.
WHY is Stress the Enemy of Resilience?
Let me come back to WHY stress is the enemy of resilience.
Resilience is defined as "The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties".
That is only possible if we have strategies and are in touch with our emotions and bodies to be able to regulate both.
When we're constantly stressed though our pre-frontal cortex = our executive brain where we take decisions and think logically, is basically switched off as our bodies are in survival mode.
Bugger.
So there we go - unless we break the stress cycle and develop those skills to deal with whatever triggers our personal stress response, resilience is out of reach, keeping us away from progressing personally and professionally.
Sometimes we cannot change the outer world - meaning eliminating the stressors.
Then the only answer is to CHANGE OUR RESPONSE TO THEM.
THAT is one of the most powerful skills in my book.
And takes a lot of practice to master it.
The 4 Steps to Changing Your Response to Stress
THE FIRST STEP: AWARENESS. Of what triggers your stress, why and what your typical response looks like.
For me one of my triggers is when things don't go as planned (with people, projects…my dogs ;-)…). The WHY is that I'm worried that I'm not in control of the situation and the the outcome is uncertain.
SECOND STEP: hit the brakes before reacting
THIRD STEP: Define a better response. Better means, better for YOU. Which also tends to be better for the situation.Maybe also ask yourself: What's the worst thing that can happen? More often the answer to that question is "Nothing".
For me the better response is taking a deep breathe, exhaling slowly and formulating questions to get more clarity why things go in a different direction. Question to myself or to others - that clearly depends on the context.
FOURTH STEP: Practicing.
Changing basic responses to stress triggers take time and practice.
And will increase your resilience massively. And as such you'll become a much better leader. AND have far more peace and calmness inside of you - that's the REAL success.
Hey. I am Claudia - a former executive leader turned into a Leadership Coach focusing on "hands-on" leadership in real life - mainly in scientific and tech related industries - and making sure that people I work with achieve results: Leading authentically, using not just their brilliant mind but also all their deeper potential of heart & body intelligence and becoming excellent communicators- both of which eliminate 80 % of all issues in leadership immediately. Want some support? Then drop me an e-mail at [email protected] and let's talk how that could look like.
